A travel writing notebook for Bloggers and Writers

Jay Artale

Using your five senses travel journal

Each blank journal page has one Scene Box, and five sections to capture notes related to each one of your senses.

• Use the Scene box to capture the when and where of your experience, and capture the date in the date box provided. 
• Then use the sense boxes to paint a word picture to describe your sensory experience.

This Five Senses Travel Journal is intended to be a memory prompt to the locations, people, and experiences you encounter during your day. It's intentionally compact, so you only capture the primary impressions to act as a reminder and don't fall into the trap of trying to write down every detail of the scene.

You may want to use a double-page spread to capture a little bit more details about your encounter. In that case, I'd recommend using one side of the facing page to capture your primary sensory impressions, and the other side to capture your secondary impressions. 

Using your Five Senses

Our five senses are the sense of sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. Each one plays a unique role by receiving information from the environment and relaying it to our brain for interpretation.

Sensory words are powerful tools for recreating an image in another person's mind. That's a big responsibility, but also a lot of fun. Your readers will visualize their specific scene based on their past observations and personal experiences.

As travel writers, we need to create content that is descriptive enough to transport our readers to a location or helping them imagine encountering the people you've met, to experience the scene you're sharing with them. Make them feel like they're a fly on the wall, and they're part of the experience.

The more senses you rely on, and the more specific your word choice, the better you can convey your experience.

By using your five senses travel journey to capture your impressions, you'll dramatically improve your travel writing and help your readers connect with the scenes you're painting in your blog posts, articles, and books.